The rhythmic thud of the heavy workbench echoed in the silent room. A low groan tore from his throat.
I should have run right then, disgusted by his twisted behavior.
But instead, I stood there as if my feet were glued to the floor, one hand gripping the doorframe, and watched my stepfather’s body move.
Sweat gleamed on his bare back. His broad shoulders bunched and released with every hard thrust, the synthetic frame of the bed groaning under his weight. I watched his stomach tighten. The shock didn't stay in my head where it belonged. It dropped between my legs so fast that I had to lock my knees.
His large hand suddenly tangled in the doll’s hair…my hair color, my style. He pulled its head back, his breathing ragged.
My underwear grew damp while I still told myself I was sickened. Every slick, wet sound in that warm studio made my pulse jump in places he had never touched.
The pace sped up. The harsh slap of skin against silicone echoed loudly.
I thought about that stretch opening me. I thought about being a virgin under the same weight, on the same vinyl, with that same hand gripping my hair. I thought about how much it would hurt, and how badly I still wanted the hurt if it came from him.
Shame burned up my throat. Under it was something greedier. I pressed my thighs together, and the pressure only made it worse. A small sound tried to leave my mouth, and I bit the inside of my cheek until I tasted blood.
He slapped the doll’s ass and laughed. “Still colder than you should be,” he muttered. “They keep promising better skin. This one still feels like a product.”
He did not stop. He fucked it through the complaint, harder, like the coldness offended him, and he was going to warm it by force. A tool tray rattled. The bench knocked the wall again.
I could not stop watching the place where their bodies met. I could not stop measuring myself against it.
If I had been on that bench, I would not have been cold. If I had been on that bench, I would not have been able to stay quiet.
His head started to turn… I moved too fast that my heel caught the leg of a work stool, and it skidded loudly. A tray of fittings went with it... metal on concrete.
I did not wait to see his face. I ran. I barely remembered the hall. I remembered the key going back under the paper, the car door, and my hands shaking on the wheel in the alley while the studio lamp was still on behind the glass.
I sat there until I could see the road. Then I drove home to a dark house and a mother who was already asleep, still smitten with a man who had just come inside a copy of her daughter.
That was last night.
—
My name is Summer. I’m twenty years old, and there’s something I’ve never told anyone: I’ve been in love with my stepfather since the week he moved our boxes into the house.
It is not the kind of love you joke about and grow out of. It sits in my stomach at dinner. It makes me hate the sound of my own mother’s laugh when it is meant for him.
Hayes married her two years ago in a courthouse. I stood behind her and watched him sign the paper, and I have not had a quiet thought since.
He owns the shop. Custom lifelike dolls. Faces, bodies, skin, even the little scars people pay extra for. The kind people order when someone is gone and the house is too quiet—a late husband, a partner they outlived, a face they are not ready to stop talking to.
He takes the photographs they bring him, and he builds something they can hold. That is the work my mother is proud of. That is why she does not ask when he stays after hours. The front of the shop is clean glass and quiet money. The real work is the studio in the back, the locked room, the after-hours pieces he does not put in the window.
Lately, I’ve noticed the shift.
I used to lie awake in my bedroom, listening to their headboard bang against the drywall. His heavy grunts would echo down the hall. That was the rough obsession he used to give her.
Now, their bedroom is dead quiet.
Mom still reaches for him like a starving woman. She presses against his arm in the kitchen, her eyes begging. But he goes rigid. When her fingers trail toward his belt, he catches her wrist.
I watch her flinch. A sick spark of relief flares in my chest.
Because when she touches him, he goes numb.
Yet with me, he’s always different. He never says no to me. He’s kind—almost too kind.
And honestly, what woman could resist being singled out by a man that handsome? If I’m being honest, I enjoy every bit of it.
So whenever Mom and I fight, I go to him.
Last night, I felt like we’d added another little secret between us—one my mother knew nothing about.
I’d finally discovered where all the hunger he kept denying my mother had been going instead:
Into a doll with my mouth!
What the actual fuck…?
And why the fuck did it feel… so good?
I sat on the edge of my bed. I stared at my hands. I tried to shrink the memory, but it refused to fade.
I kept seeing that thick vein. The wet shine. The way his broad thumb dug deep into a synthetic hip copied exactly from mine.
I lasted until the shower.
Hot water beat against my back. I slid my hand between my legs, squeezing my eyes shut. I chased the image. My hips jerked. I came so hard that my knee cracked against the wet tile.
I hated the weakness. But I did it again anyway.
I clamped my free hand over my mouth to kill the noise. I pushed faster. I desperately wanted his heavy weight. I wanted the rough grip I had watched in the studio. I climaxed again, shivering and breathless.
I turned the faucet off. I stepped onto the bathmat. My skin burned, but the hollow ache in my core only grew deeper. My own touch was useless. It would never be enough to fill the craving he ripped open.
I am a virgin and I have kept it like an idiot.
But it didn’t matter anymore.
I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be such an idiot for much longer.
And by noon, my perfect plan was already in motion..
He mentioned a new shipment at breakfast, before I had even changed out of the clothes I had run home in. Better batch. They finally fixed the skin. He said it to my mother like inventory.
She nodded and poured his coffee while I sat there wondering how it'll feel when he fucks me instead of that doll.
Oh god I couldn't wait.
This time, I won’t just stand there in the doorway and watch him fuck a stupid doll replica of me.
I just wanna feel his cock in me. And I will.